What is Anxiety and Why Do I Feel This Way?
When your body shifts into fight, flight, or freeze, it sends powerful messages through your nervous system, preparing you to respond to perceived danger. Anxiety is essentially an inappropriate or exaggerated fear response. It often kicks in automatically, leaving you feeling powerless and overwhelmed. Many people even develop a fear of anxiety itself, leading to a cycle of panic and avoidance—a neural loop that’s difficult to break without the right support.
The good news? Anxiety is not a life sentence. Through mind-body techniques like hypnosis for anxiety, somatic healing, and being present through breath and mindfulness exercises, you can begin to break the cycle and rewire your response to stress.
Stress is not anxiety, but long term stress can cause anxiety.
Recognising Common Anxiety Symptoms
Increased heart rate
A tightening or weight in your heart area
A feeling of impending doom
Gut tightening or nausea (IBS can be a symptom)
Sweaty hands
Tremors
A feeling of intense fear, almost as if you might die
Fear of fear, so you may have anxiety of getting anxiety
Fast and unpleasant catastrophizing thoughts
Wanting to pee
Panic attacks where you hyper-ventilate and have difficulty breathing
Difficult sleeping
How does my anxiety develop? How are my triggers wired?
The part of the brain that controls anxiety and fear is call the amygdala. Any signal that is perceived as a possible threat is processed in the thalamus (brain's switchboard) which divides into two and sent along two different pathways. Both lead to the amygdala. One triggers fight, flight or freeze which triggers all the nasty symptoms of anxiety such as an increased heart rate, nausea, sweating and a feeling that you are doing to die. The other signal goes via the cortex to the amygdala. The cortex is where rational thought takes place and your brain is determining whether there really is danger.
So for example if you hear a mechanical noise while in a plane, that sound goes straight to the amygdala and produces a rush of fear. About half a second later the other signal arrives from the cortex and determines that it is the sound of the wheels coming down and therefore you are not in danger and your amygdala calms you down. However the fear activated automatically before you were able to ascertain whether you were in danger. You are experiencing anxiety via an automatic process which can make you feel helpless as well as in terrible fear.
If you are sensitised and triggered by something such as flying or being in social groups, the trigger can become stuck and cannot be overridden by signals from the cortex telling you that you are safe. That is why you stay in fear and anxiety. The triggers have become ingrained or you may describe it as a neural loop.
In neurology there is a saying, "what fires together wires together", so we have to teach your brain a new pattern, which we do through the imagination, while in a trance state. We can also disrupt the pattern through NLP techniques, or use EMDR to break the emotion from the event. We can also understand the triggers and use mindful thinking. In addition we can work with the body/mind connection and the unconscious to bring about change.
There are some experiences or traits I find regularly in clients suffering from anxiety:
A trauma or multiple traumas in childhood or adult life that has switched the system into fight or flight and a dysregulated nervous system
Long term stress.
A tough inner critic.
High achieving with a lack of work/life balance.
How does my anxiety develop? How are my triggers wired?
The part of the brain that controls anxiety and fear is call the amygdala. Any signal that is perceived as a possible threat is processed in the thalamus (brain's switchboard) which divides into two and sent along two different pathways. Both lead to the amygdala. One triggers fight, flight or freeze which triggers all the nasty symptoms of anxiety such as an increased heart rate, nausea, sweating and a feeling that you are doing to die. The other signal goes via the cortex to the amygdala. The cortex is where rational thought takes place and your brain is determining whether there really is danger.
So for example if you hear a mechanical noise while in a plane, that sound goes straight to the amygdala and produces a rush of fear. About half a second later the other signal arrives from the cortex and determines that it is the sound of the wheels coming down and therefore you are not in danger and your amygdala calms you down. However the fear activated automatically before you were able to ascertain whether you were in danger. You are experiencing anxiety via an automatic process which can make you feel helpless as well as in terrible fear.
If you are sensitised and triggered by something such as flying or being in social groups, the trigger can become stuck and cannot be overridden by signals from the cortex telling you that you are safe. That is why you stay in fear and anxiety. The triggers have become ingrained or you may describe it as a neural loop.
In neurology there is a saying, "what fires together wires together", so we have to teach your brain a new pattern, which we do through the imagination, while in a trance state. We can also disrupt the pattern through NLP techniques, or use EMDR to break the emotion from the event. We can also understand the triggers and use mindful thinking. In addition we can work with the body/mind connection and the unconscious to bring about change.
There are some experiences or traits I find regularly in clients suffering from anxiety:
A trauma or multiple traumas in childhood or adult life that has switched the system into fight or flight and a dysregulated nervous system
Long term stress.
A tough inner critic.
High achieving with a lack of work/life balance.
How Do You get Anxiety?
Many people describe anxiety as having come on suddenly but when they examine their lives we often find there has been a long lead-up or identifiable triggers. Certainly there is an alarming increase in both anxiety and depression in our society, particularly amongst young people. There are many reasons for why anxiety switches on and locks in:
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Genetic disposition, it runs in the family
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It can be triggered by childhood or adult trauma or abuse
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Stress due to an illness
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Stress build-up through lifestyle or work pressures
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a reaction to drugs or coming off an anti-anxiety drug
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personality type, you may have a disposition towards stress and anxiety, such as a touch inner critic or high achieving or low confidence
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mental health disorders, anxiety often goes hand-in-hand with depression
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Anxiety and ADHD or autism tend to go hand-in-hand
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research indicates that high levels of stress and cortisol during a pregnancy can result in the child being more prone to anxiety
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It can be medical - for example a thyroid disorder
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It can be gut related, such as an overgrowth of SIBO
I generally find if there are no psychological indicators, fears, or background trauma, it's worth getting medical tests including a SIBO test. The way you can understand it is a medical issue is when it comes on very strong for no apparent reason. You may be packing a bag and thinking purely about packing a bag, and you get a rush of anxiety that appears to come out of nowhere.
However keep in mind that unconscious triggers can also be under anxiety, so watch yourself for a period of time and keep a log of when you get anxiety.
Calming and helping you neutralise anxiety is what I do best. If you are in need of help, please reach out. If you want to know how I do it, read this:
Diana Joy
Anxiety Specialist practising in Balmain Sydney.
Please get in touch below if you need help.
0414486707